Prepare your flax egg by whisking together ground flax seeds and water. Set aside to thicken.
In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, and lemon zest.
In a small bowl, mix the milk, melted coconut oil, lemon extract, and flax mixture together.
Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix well to combine. Don't over mix.
Using a piping bag or a large Ziploc bag (see note below), pipe the mixture into each cavity.
Bake for 10 minutes.
Remove from oven and let the pan sit for a few minutes before removing the doughnuts.
Remove the doughnuts from the pan and place on a cooling rack.
While the doughnuts are cooling, make the glaze:
Add the powdered sugar to a small bowl and add the lemon juice, and lemon zest (if using).
Mix until everything has combined into a liquid glaze.
When the doughnuts have fully cooled (they don't take long!), dip the tops of each doughnut into the glaze. Repeat with all the doughnuts.
Place the doughnuts back onto the cooling rack for the excess glaze to drip off and for the glaze to firm up. (Place a piece of parchment paper under the rack to catch the drips!)
Notes
If you are making the vegan gluten-free version, it's important to know that every gluten-free flour blend uses different ingredients and ratios. Results will always vary when different flours are used. I have never used any other brand of flour to make these doughnuts, other than Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1 Baking Flour in the blue bag, NOT the red bag, so please know that your results may not be the same as mine if you substitute with a different gluten free flour.
Coconut flour will NOT work in this recipe.
I used golden flax seeds for this recipe but regular flax seeds can be used if you don't have golden seeds. They both work the same and your results will not be affected based on the type of seeds you use. You'll just have brown (tasteless) specks in your doughnuts!
If you are making the vegan gluten-free version, the batter will be very thick. That's OK! Just pipe it into the pan as-is.
A piping bag is recommended for getting the batter into the pan. If you don't have a piping bag, use a large Ziploc bag and snip off the end to stand in for a piping bag. If you don't have either, carefully spoon the batter into each doughnut cavity.
It's best to eat the doughnuts the same day they were made. The glaze does not hold up well. If you have leftovers, refrigerate them but know that the glaze may melt into the doughnut if kept for too long!
Nutrition info is based on 1 vegan gluten-free doughnut with glaze and is only to be used as a rough guide. Calorie count for 1 doughnut using the vegan only recipe is 211 calories. Click to learn how nutrition info is calculated on this website.